Council redistricting lawsuit: Battling disinformation is like swatting gnats.

It should be obvious by now that not all local bloggers have, shall we tactfully say, the same honorable standards for differentiation when it comes to fact and fiction.

Because of this unfortunate variance, and also because not all local bloggers are noted for their commitment to predictability as it pertains to the frequency of updates and corrections, I’m compelled to make a public note of blatant disinformation appearing in two July 29, 2007 postings of the Fiscally Conservative Floyd County Democrat blog.

The first was corrected, and graciously, but the second has not been set straight as of the time of this writing.

From the outset, it should be known that I am one of 20 plaintiffs in the council redistricting lawsuit, which is explained in this NAC posting of May 16, 2006:

Tribune reports: Redistricting lawsuit filed today.

“Twenty residents sued New Albany and the City Council Tuesday afternoon, claiming population imbalance in council districts and calling for a special commission to investigate.”

To echo the words of our colleague Bluegill, there’s ample time for the council to grandstand over take-home police cars, but not time for it to address a state-mandated redistricting that is three years overdue.

Make that four.

The attorney for the plaintiffs is Stephen Beardsley, the attorney for the city council is Jerry Ulrich, and if there has been any progress made in any noteworthy way toward resolving the complaint in the 14+ months that have passed since the suit was originally filed, I’m not aware of it.

In fact, I’ve expressed frequent and periodically scathing public annoyance at not being kept informed by our own attorney, which makes it all the more surprising that Yvonne Kersey (“Con-Dem”), author of the FCFCD blog, spent most of the blogday on Monday insisting first that I had been privy to a top level meeting between a judge, two attorneys and selected city council members, and then when her opening bluff was called, expediently coming up with a new version of the story holding that a “Mr. Baylor” called the Federal Building in search of attorney Beardsley during the aforementioned conclave – with the clear insinuation that the Mr. Baylor in question was up to no good.

That there are 19 other plaintiffs in the case seems to have eluded Con-Dem, who has chosen to focus erroneously on just one.

Now, as farfetched as it may sound, it may actually be the case that someone else named Mr. Baylor, or someone pretending to be Mr. Baylor, phoned the Federal Building in search of Stephen Beardsley on the day in question, resulting in a clerk walking into a meeting room and repeating my surname in the presence of city councilmen Kevin Zurschmiede and Larry Kochert, who Ms. Kersey insists have “verified” her much amended blog report.

But that seems highly doubtful, doesn’t it?

Seeing as Ms. Kersey has chosen to leave my name on her second of two published falsehoods in spite of my request to edit it, I’ve little choice except to state the following for the public record:

I have neither telephoned the Federal Building nor spoken with a clerk there – to my knowledge, not a single time ever in my life.

Furthermore, I have not spoken with Mr. Ulrich for two or three weeks, perhaps longer; the last time I can remember chatting with him was on the way out of the City-County building following a council meeting, although it may have been in passing at the Bistro New Albany.

Also, the last time I spoke with Mr. Beardsley was roughly two weeks ago, at the former Main Street Grind, where a witness with whom I was breakfasting can verify that the topic of the conversation was the birth of his grandchild, and that I did not mention the redistricting case at all. In fact, I've not discussed the redistricting case with attorney Beardsley for nine months or more, and probably closer to a year, since shortly after it was filed.

It is disconcerting to waste valuable time on such matters, which might have been laid to rest with a simple phone call, but such is the recurring pattern of vividly turgid (and untruthful) revelation, followed by a silence sufficiently lengthy for the bald-faced lie to coalesce, and by the time the retraction (if any) is issued, the damage already has been done.

Toward what purpose? That is much harder to determine. The blogger Con-Dem herself speaks of the possibility of Democrats having “a caucus meeting so we can put Mr. (Bill) Schmidt back in,” which is a real knee-slapper considering the overwhelming defeat suffered by the incumbent at the hands of challenger Bob Caesar.

Bizarrely, Ms. Kersey asks: “IS THIS THE REAL STORY, AFTER ALL? ARE THE FACTS RIGHT ON THIS ONE, THIS TIME?”

As with the first time, the answer is “no.”

But that hasn’t stopped her before, has it?

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Yesterday's first Con-Dem post: WHAT IS IT -- SOMETHING NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT?